I am the Student Services Manager in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford. This means that I am responsible for staff support for graduate student admissions, degree progress and conferral, and financial aid for the department. Yasmeen Husain, the Student Services Assistant, helps me with these tasks and also provides course and classroom support.
Together we serve approximately 250 grad students, who are pursuing the degrees of Master of Science, Engineer, and Ph.D. They are a wild and wonderful bunch, from more than a hundred schools and a dozen countries. [There aren't many undergrads because we don't have a major, but we do offer a minor and a program under General Engineering, and many seniors in other majors do take Aero/Astro graduate courses as electives. Undergrads interested in Aero/Astro should also ask about the co-term option.]
Take a look at the Aero/Astro department home page for more info about our students, faculty, labs, graduate programs, etc.
My other Aero/Astro coworkers include:
On a personal note:
I took a leave of absence for Aero/Astro in Fall 1999, to accompany my spouse to Stanford's overseas studies campus in Florence. Yes, that's Firenze, Italia! We were the faculty couple in residence there for fall quarter (this was our second time - we were also there Fall 1997). It was a wonderful experience, and one which certainly gave me even greater appreciation for the our international students' ability to make sense of day-to-day life in another language and another culture.
If you wonder what I was doing, besides eating, drinking, and regressing to the Renaissance (at least, of the part I can talk about!), try looking at the Overseas Studies info. Stanford undergrads have some really wonderful opportunities, at Stanford campuses from Moscow to Kyoto - though the luckiest ones were with us at Stanford-in-Florence ... . Some of my favorite places are described - or shown - on the web: